The first time I met him, I passed by my lover, in the busy streets of Connaught Place, walking without a reason. Today when he and I are here again, primarily in response to our love for a certain cafe, I am reminded of our abrupt meet. Though in all honesty, I was in need of someone, mostly because of the fact that most of my friends’ lives were peopled already. Under these enormous buildings made of white marble, one is often dazed by the number of shops that have taken permanent residence here.

We sip coffee, munch egg sandwiches and engender rapport. It is easy to loose oneself in the restlessness that the city is always consumed in. I am meeting my boyfriend after a period of 3 months, and both of us know that we’ll make love soon after in either of our tiny flats, but the restlessness in our hearts is perfectly obvious. But that’s fine.

I have decided not to complain.

When we wake up the next morning, my arm splayed across his bare chest, I realize that it’s half past 11 and I have already missed my appointment with the dentist.

My body has reminisced of us making love, so I wear a turtle neck shirt, blushing at the same time. My parents would disapprove of me. Not only am I making love before getting married, but that also with someone from the same sex. Joy feels like a kind of revolt.

I endanger the lives of my neighbors every time my boyfriend is home, or when I am home a little too drunk. Divine is my body that has given birth to my senses. I have come to love a man, just like any straight person would love a woman but divine is my body.

My boyfriend wakes up soon after, but we do not talk for a short while. He tells me that he has to go for a seminar just outside the city and invites me for the same, but I refuse. I’ve come to terms with parting and meeting.There is always a form of urgency even when we meet, lost always in our words.

I leave his place after breakfast, and in hope to find a bus that goes directly towards my place, I wait at the bus stop. The bus stop is unusually crowded for a Sunday morning, so I decide to go to a friend’s place at Hauz Khas. It’s only the month of March, but it’s already over 35 degrees here. The city doesn’t have the same mystic charm as Gregory Davis Robert describes Mumbai with, but it is undoubtedly no less ambiguous to the unwary traveler. I, too am hidden in its smog-filled streets. Leaving the city to decide my fate as it goes.

I leave my friend’s place sometime around 3.3o and the market is filled now. I reach Sarojini Nagar in search of a few basic necessities, and it’s packed. With men who sell only bangles on their carts, bangles that are long discarded by their own wives to small kulfi joints, inevitably crowded by a lousy and loud group of teenagers.

I have conjured most of my life’s realities in dreams and in short write-ups, but today doesn’t feel like a day to write or dream. I feel ashamed of making love with the person I love the most, and my hands reach out for the arteries and bleeding veins inside my heart, prying with force.

But so long as I walk with a smile on my face and nobody notices me bleeding none shall stop or mutter a word. To muster enough care for my heart to nurture again. For life, for love, for sensuality. And for days to come.